Crime > Software piracy rate: Countries Compared

The Software Piracy Rate reports the proportion of installed software that is pirated. It takes into account both commercial and open-source programs.

Piracy, and intellectual property in general, is a contentious issue between developed states and the rest of the world. Developed states are net producers of software and emerging economies have lax policing as well as minimal financial incentive for compliance. Among frequent pirates, emerging markets pirate 4 times as much as mature markets.

This represents a large missed opportunity for software publishers as emerging markets represent 56% the world's new PC shipments.

Findings from the 2011 Software Alliance report: 1. The overrall worldwide piracy rate was 42%. 2. Software piracy is particularly common among young males.

Note: this data is from a survey. The actual incidence of privacy may be higher, particularly in jurisdictions where penalties for piracy are enforced.

Yemen ranked first for software piracy rate amongst Middle Eastern and North Africa in 2007.

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Factors that can contribute to differences in software piracy include: software prices relative to income, the strength of intellectual property protection and cultural attitudes. The countries with the lower piracy rates also tend to be strong producers of intellectual property, and vice versa.

There is a strong push by developed nations (who are strong producers of intellectual property) to force developing nations to improve their enforcement of intellectual property rights, despite the fact that they themselves were slow to adopt strong protection of intellectual property during their own development phase. US industry has estimated it loses between US$200-250 billion annually due to copyright infringement around the world, and the Bush Administration has listed 14 countries which need to improve protection of intellectual property or face US trade sanctions -- the countries are Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Turkey and Venezuela. Israel stands out on this list by having a software piracy rate of only 35%, the same as Canada and slightly more than half the software piracy rate of Brazil, with the next lowest software piracy rate at 61%.

However, developing countries claim they need access to knowledge, and developed countries will need to yield some ground to make it worthwhile for developing nations to increase protection of intellectual property. During discussions held by the World Intellectual Property Organization on this topic, India's representatives said "For developing countries to benefit from providing IP protection to rights holders based in developed countries, there has to be some obligation on the part of developed countries to transfer and disseminate technologies to developing countries."

The Software Piracy Rate reports the proportion of installed software that is pirated. It takes into account both commercial and open-source programs.

Piracy, and intellectual property in general, is a contentious issue between developed states and the rest of the world. Developed states are net producers of software and emerging economies have lax policing as well as minimal financial incentive for compliance. Among frequent pirates, emerging markets pirate 4 times as much as mature markets.

This represents a large missed opportunity for software publishers as emerging markets represent 56% the world's new PC shipments.

Findings from the 2011 Software Alliance report: 1. The overrall worldwide piracy rate was 42%. 2. Software piracy is particularly common among young males.

Note: this data is from a survey. The actual incidence of privacy may be higher, particularly in jurisdictions where penalties for piracy are enforced.

The MAIN reason that there is even software piracy is because the big commercial software companies do "everything" within their powers to TOTALLY SUPPRESS the dissemination of information about ALL the FREE software available that does almost the same tasks as their high costing commercial software:

For Example: http://drbray.blogspot.com/2011/10/necessary-freeware.html

If sites like this were disseminated all around the world and translated into many languages, then one would see the piracy of software DECREASE by a huge factor!

Man, alot of you guys don't seem to understand this information. It's the proportion of software being used which is pirated. Nothing to do with any movies, music, ebooks, etc.

20% of software in the USA being pirate copies, is a projected loss of $8,040,000,000. 93% of software in Armenia being pirate copies is a projected loss of only $8,000,000. The countries at the top have far less people who actually use software, and like a few have mentioned, not such strict copyright laws.

I support pirates because i feel that there is no other way to get rid of monopoly. If there would be no piray believe me you you will end up paying your loan emi for years. Also, forget about development of human being because it always depend upon source of knowledge.

If mega companies don't want their stuff jak'd then why don't they just make their software completely untouchable without the money first I mean seriously it doesn't make any sense. I put a lock on my door maybe they should to.

America is last because we are just about the only country that doesn't use Piracy as a common source of income combined with lack of laws against it. In China almost exact copies of media are sold openly on the street for a tenth of what we pay for them in America. Same thing in Mexico but are clearly just copies. If we did this in the USA, we would almost immediately be prosecuted for it. Also American companies make most media in the world and its just too hard to file suit internationally so there's less to fear doing it in other countries.

The whole reason why stats like these are being made, is for all the companies that make software, to keep high prices or even increase them, as a false reimbursement for all the piracy that happens to them.

I live in South Africa and we have the higher rate of piracy rate in our schools. 90% of our schools use pirated copies of MS Windows. 2% of schools use open source software such as Linux, Free BSD etc. But i doubt America is at the bottom...i strongly doubt and lightly disagree.

The only way to track these stats is to become the file sharing industry and slowly make it profitable. Why do you think it is still so easy to download and use file sharing programs?- Someone wants you to. they are simply using the medium to mold a new business model.

How are they supposed to get these numbers? Do people just call in and say that they pirated software. BULL! Nobody is going to admit it. These people would have to go to every computer in the world and check every piece of software as it is installed. I am not saying that piracy does not happen. I'm saying that there is no way for them to know how much it happens.

It's not that software companies leave themselves open, it's quite the opposite. It's the fact that someone is bound to inevitably come along and bypass the 'protection' the company implemented.

Software companies do not want to hassle their customers with ultra tight security. Otherwise they would lose business. So they try to compromise by implementing things such as SecuRom and product keys and what not. But unfortunately, someone, for some reason unbeknownst to me, decides to bypass it and shares it with everyone. Probably so he or she can get a moment of fame.

Im researching software piracy for a college course and can not figure out why a company would leave themselves open for their software to be stolen in the first place. Sure we think just because we can find the software on the computer its okay to down load it (No one will Know) but where has our concious gone don't we as humans know right from wrong stealing is stealing.

I totally agree with Sam (10th June, 2009). Downloading software is probably the most common and easiest way to pirate. And where do people download from? Rapidshare, easy upload, mega upload and the likes. And where are the servers of these sites located?